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The Irrepressible Conflict. 



/ A SPEECH 



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Copy 1 



WILLIAM H. SEWAKD, 

II 

ILIYEKED AT KOCHESTER, MONDAY, OCT 25, 1858. 



r-CiTizENS : The unmistakable out- 
breaks of zeal which occur all around me, show 
that you are earnest men — and such a man am 
I. Let us therefore, at least for a time, pass 
by all secondary and collateral questions, 
whether of a personal or of a general nature, 
and consider the main subject of the present 
canvass. The Democratic party — or, to speak 
more accurately — the party which wears that 
attractive name, is in possession of the Federal 
Government. The Republicans propose to dis- 
lodge that party, and dismiss it from its high 
trust. 

The main subject, then, is, whether the De- 
mocratic party deserves to retain the confi- 
dence of the American People. In attempting 
to prove it unworthy, I think that I am not 
actuated by prejudices against that party, or 
by prepossessions in favor of its adversary ; for 
I have learned, by some experience, that vir- 
tue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are 
found in all parties, and that they difier less in 
their motives than in the policies they pursue. 

Our country is a theatre, which exhibits, in 
full operation, two radically diflferent political 
systems ; the one resting on the basis of servile 
or slave labor, the other on the basis of volun- 
tary labor of freemen. 

The laborers who are enslaved are all ne- 
groes, or persons more or less purely of Afri- 
can derivation. But this is only accidental. 
The principle of the system is, that labor in 
every society, by whomsoever performed, is 
necessarily unintellectual, grovelling and base ; 
and that the laborer, equally for his own good 
and for the welfare of the State, ought to be 
enslaved. The white laboring man, whether 
native or foreigner, is not enslaved, only be- 
cause he cannot, as yet, be reduced to bon- 
dage. 

You need not be told now that the slave 
system is the older of the two, and that once 
it was universal. 

The emancipation of our own ancestors, 
Caucasians and Europeans as they were, hardly 



dates beyond a period of five hundred years. 
The great melioration of human society which 
modern times exhibit, is mainly due to the 
incomplete substitution of the system of volun- 
tary labor for the old one of servile labor, 
which has already taken place. This African 
slave system is one which, in its origin and in 
its growth, has been altogether foreign from 
the habits of the races which colonized these 
States, and established civilization here. It 
was introduced on this new continent as an 
engine of conquest, and for the establishment 
of monarchical power, by the Portuguese and 
the Spaniards, and was rapidly extended by 
them all over South America, Central Ame- 
rica, Louisiana, and Mexico. Its legitimate 
fruits are seen in the poverty, imbecility, and 
anarchy, which now pervade all Portuguese 
and Spanish America. The free-labor system 
is of German extraction, and it was establish- 
ed in our country by emigrants from Sweden, 
Holland, Germany, Great Britain, and Ire- 
land. 

We justly ascribe to its influences the 
strength, wealth, greatness, intelligence, and 
freedom, which the whole American people 
now enjoy. One of the chief elements of the 
value of human life is freedom in the pursuit 
of happiness. The slave system is not only in- 
tolerant, unjust, and inhuman, toward the la- 
borer, whom, only because he is a laborer, it 
loads down with chains and converts into mer- 
chandise, but is scarcely less severe upon th« 
freeman, to whom, only because he is a laborer 
from necessity, it denies facilities for employ- 
ment, and whom it expels from the commu- 
nity because it cannot enslave and convert 
him into merchandise also. It is necessarily 
improvident and ruinous, because, as a gene- 
ral truth, communities pi-osper and flourish or 
droop and decline in just the degree that they 
practise or neglect to practise the primary 
duties of justice and humanity. The free- 
labor system conforms to the divine law of 
equality, which is written in the hearts and 



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consciences of men, and therefore is always 
and everywhere beneficent. 

The slave system is one of constant danger, 
distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It de- 
bases those whose toil alone can produce 
wealth and resources for defence, to tlie lowest 
degree of -which human nature is capable, to 
guard against mutiny and insurrection, and 
4hus wastes energies which otherwise migiit 
be employed in national development and 
aggrandizement. 

The free-labor system educates all alike, and 
by opening all the fields of industrial employ- 
ment, and all tlie departments of authority, to 
the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes 
of men, at once secures universal contentment, 
and brings into the highest possible activity all 
the pliysical, moral, and social energies of the 
■whole State. In States where the slave- sys- 
tem prevails, the masters, directly or indirect- 
ly, secure all political power, and constitute a 
ruling aristocracy. In States where the free- 
labor system prevails, universal suffrage ne- 
cessarily obtains, and the State inevitably 
becomes, sooner or later, a republic or demo- 
cracy. 

Russia yet maintains slavery, and is a des- 
potism. Most of the other European states 
have abolished slavery, and adopted the sys- 
tem of free labor. It was the antagonistic po- 
litical tendencies of the two systems which 
the first Napoleon was contemplating when 
■he predicted that Europe would ultimately be 
either all Cossack or all Republican. Never 
did human sagacity utter a more pregnant 
truth. The two systems are at once perceived 
to be incongruous. But they are more than 
incongruous — they are incompatible. They 
never have permanently existed together in 
one country, and they never can. It would be 
easy to demonstrate this impossibility, from 
the irreconcilable contrast between their great 
principles and characteristics. But the ex- 
perience of mankind has conclusively estab- 
lished it. Slavery, as I have already intimated, 
•eiisted in every state in Europe. Free labor 
has supplanted it everywhere except in Rus- 
sia and Turkey. State necessities developed 
in modern times, are now obliging even those 
two nations to encourage and employ free 
labor; and already, despotic as they are, we 
find them engaged in abolishing slavery. In 
tlie United States, slavery came into collision 
with free labor at the close of the last century, 
and fell before it in New England, New York, 
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but triumphed 
over it effectually, and excluded it for a period 
yet undetermined, from Virginia, the Caro- 
linas, and Georgia. Indeed, so incompatible 
are the two systems, that every new State 
which is organized within our ever-extending 
domain makes its first political act a choice of 
the one and an exclusion of the other, even at 



the cost of civil war, if necessary. The sl^ 
States, without law, at the last national ek 
tion, successfully forbade, witliin their ow 
limits, even the casting of votes for a candi 
date for President of the United States sup- \ 
posed to be favorable to the establishment of ^ 
tlie free-labor system in new States. 

Hitherto, the two systems have existed in 
different States, but side by side witLin tlie 
American Union, This has happened because 
the Union is a confederation of States. But 
in another aspect the United States constitute 
only one nation. Increase of population, which 
is filling the States out to their very borders, 
together with a new and extended net-work 
of railroads and other avenues, and an inter- 
nal commerce which daily becomes more inti- 
mate, is rapidly bringing the States into a 
higher and more perfect social unity or con- 
solidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems 
are continually coming into closer contact, 
and collision results. 

Shall I tell you what this collision means ? 
They who think that it is accidental, unneces- 
sary, the work of interested or fanatical agi- 
tators, and tlierefore ephemeral, mistake the 
case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict 
between opposing and enduring forces, and it 
means that the United States must and will 
sooner or later, become either entirely a slave- 
holding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. 
Either the cotton and rice fields of South Ca- 
rolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana 
will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and 
Charleston and New Orleans become marts 
for legitimate merchandise alone, or else thf 
rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts 
and New York must again be surrendered bj 
their farmers to slave culture and to the pro 
duction of slaves, and Boston and New Yort 
become once more markets for trade in the 
bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to 
apprehend this great truth that induces so 
many unsuccessful attempts at final compro- 
mise between the slave and free States, and it 
is the existence of this great fact that renders 
all such pretended compromises, when made, 
vain and ephemeral. Startling as this saying 
may appear to you, fellow-citizens, it is by no 
means an original or even a modern one. Our 
forefathers knew it to be true, and unanimous- 
ly acted upon it when they framed the Con- 
stitution of the United States. They regarded 
the existence of the servile system in so many 
of the States with sorrow and shame, wla«?h 
they o])enly confessed, and they looked npon 
the collision between them, which was then 
just revealing itself, and which we are now 
accustomed to deplore, with favor and hope. 
They knew that either the one or the other 
system must exclusively prevail. * 

Unlike too many of those who in modern 
time invoke their authority, they had a choice 



between the two. They preferred the system 
of free labor, and they determined to organize 
the Government, and so to direct its activity, 
that that system should surely and certainly 
prevail. For this purpose, and no other, they 
based the whole structure of Government 
broadly on the principle that all men are 
created equal, and therefore free — little dream- 
mg that, within the short period of one hun- 
dred years, their descendants would bear to 
be told by any orator, however popular, that 
the utterance of that principle was merely a 
rhetorical rhapsody ; or by any judge, how- 
ever venerated, that it was attended by men- 
tal reservations, which rendered it hypocriti- 
cal and false. By the Ordinance of 1787, they 
dedicated all of the national domain not yet 
polluted by Slavery to free labor immediately, 
thenceforth and forever ; while by the new 
Constitution and laws they invited foreign 
free labor from all lands under the sun, and 
interdicted the importation of African slave 
labor, at all times, in all places, and under all 
circumstances whatsoever. It is true that 
they necessarily and wisely modified this 
policy of Freedom, by leaving it to the several 
States, affected as they were by differing cir- 
cumstances, to abolish Slavery in their own 
way and at their own pleasure, instead of 
confiding that duty to Congress, and that they 
secured to the Slave States, while yet retain- 
ing the system of Slavery, a three-fifths repre- 
sentation of slaves in the Federal Government, 
until they should find themselves able to re- 
linquish it with safety. But the very nature 
of these modifications fortifies my position 
that the fathers knew that the two systems 
eould not endure within the Union, and ex- 
pected that wiihin a short period Slavery 
would disappear forever. Moreover, in order 
that these modifications might not altogether 
defeat their grand design of a Republic main- 
taining universal equality, they provided that 
two-thirds of the States might amend the 
Constitution. 

It remains to say on this point only one 
wcrd, to guard against misapprehension. If 
these States are to again become universally 
slave-holding, I do not pretend to say with 
what violations of the Constitution that end 
shall be accomplished. On the other hand, 
while I do confidently believe and hope that 
my country will yet become a land of univer- 
sal Freedom, I do not expect that it will be 
made so otherwise than through the action 
of the several States cooperating with the 
Federal Government, and all acting in strict 
conformity with their respective Constitu- 
tions. 

The strife and contentions concerning Sla- 
very, which gently-disposed persons so habi- 
tually deprecate, are nothing more than the 
ripening of the conflict which the fathers 



themselves not only thus regarded with favor, 
but which they may be said to have insti- 
tuted. 

It is not to be denied, however, that thus 
far the course of that contest has not been 
according to their humane anticipations and 
wishes. In the field of federal polities. Sla- 
very, deriving unlooked-for advantages from 
commercial changes, and energies unforeseen 
from the facilities of combination between 
members of the slaveholding class and lietween 
that class and other property classes, early 
rallied, and has at length made a stand, not 
merely to retain its original defensive position, 
but to extend its sway throughout the whole 
Union. It is certain that the slaveholding 
class of American citizens indulge this high 
ambition, and that they derive encouragement 
for it from the rapid and effective political 
successes which they have already obtained. 
The plan of operation is this : By continued 
appliances of patronage and threats of dis- 
union, they will keep a majority favorable to 
these designs in the Senate, where each State 
has an equal representation. Through that 
majority they will defeat, as they best can 
the admission of free States and secure the 
admission of slave States. Under the protec- 
tion of the Judiciary, they will, on the princi- 
ple of the Dred Scott case, carry Slavery into 
all the Territories of the United States now 
existing and hereafter to be organized. By 
the action of the President and 'the Senate, 
using the treaty-making power, they will an- 
nex foreign slaveliolding States. In a favor- 
able conjuncture they will induce Congress to 
repeal the act of 1808, which prohibits the 
foreign slave-trade, and so they will import 
from Africa, at the cost of only $20 a head, 
slaves enough to fill up the interior of the 
continent. Thus relatively increasing the 
number of slave States, they will allow no 
amendment to the Constitution prejudicial to 
their interest ; and so, having permanently 
established their power, they expect the 
Federal Judiciary to nullify all State laws 
which shall interfere with internal or foreign 
commerce in slaves. When the free States 
shall be sufficiently demoralized to tolerate 
these designs, they reasonably conclude that 
Slavery will be accepted by those States them- 
selves. I shall not stop to show how speedy 
or how complete would be the ruin which 
the accomplishment of these slaveholdLag 
schemes would bring upon the country. For 
one, I should not remain in the country to 
test the sad experiment. Having spent my 
manhood, though not rny whole life, in a free 
State, no aristocracy of any kind, much less 
an aristocracy of slaveholders, shall ever make 
the laws of the land in which I shall be con- 
tent to live. Having seen the society around 
me universally engaged in agriculture, maou;- 



faotures and trade, which were innocent and 
beneficent, I shall never be a denizen of a 
State where men and women are reared as 
c-attle, and bought and sold as merchandise. 
When that evil day shall come, and all further 
effort at resistance shall be impossible, then, 
if there shall be no better hope for redemp- 
tion than I can now foresee, I shall say with 
Franklin, while looking abroad over the whole 
earth for a new and more congenial home, 
" Where liberty dwells, there is ray country." 

You will tell me that these fears are extra- 
vagant and chimerical. I answer, they are 
80 ; but they are so only because the designs 
of the slaveholders must and can be defeated. 
But it is only the possibility of defeat that 
renders them so. They cannot be defeated 
by inactivity. There is no escape from them, 
compatible with non-resistance. How, then, 
and in what way, shall the necessary resist- 
ance be made ? There is only one way. The 
Democratic party must be permanently dis- 
lodged from the Government. The reason is, 
that the Democratic party is inextricably 
committed to the designs of the slaveholders, 
which I have described. Let me be well 
understood. I do not charge that the Demo- 
cratic candidates for public office now before 
the people are pledged to, much less that the 
Democratic masses who support them really 
adopt, those atrocious and dangerous designs. 
Candidates may, and generally do, mean to 
act justly, wisely, and patriotically, when they 
shall be elected ; but they become the mini- 
sters and servants, not the dictators, of the 
power which elects them. The policy which 
a party shall pursue at a future period is only 
gradually developed, depending on the occur- 
rence of events never fully foreknown. The 
motives of men, whether acting as electors or 
in any other capacity, are generally pure. 
Nevertheless, it is not more true that " Hell 
is paved with good intentions," than it is that 
earth is covered with wrecks resulting from 
innocent and amiable motives. 

The very constitution of the Democratic 
party commits it to execute all the designs of 
the slaveholders, whatever they may be. It 
is not a party of the whole Union, of all the 
free States and of all the slave States; nor yet 
is it a party of the free States in the North 
and in the Northwest; but it is a sectional 
and local party, having practically its seat 
within the slave States, and counting its con- 
stituency chiefly and almost exclusively there. 
Of all its representatives in Congress and in 
the Electoral Colleges, two-thirds uniformly 
come from these States. Its great element of 
strength lies in the vote of the slaveholders, 
augmented by the representation of three- 
fifths of tlie slaves. Deprive the Democratic 
party of this strength, and it would be a help- 
less and hopelesB minority, incapable of con- 



tinued organization. The Democratic party, 
being thus local and sectional, acquires new 
strength from the admission of every new 
slave State, and loses relatively by the ad- 
mission of every new free State into the 
Union. » 

A party is in one sense a joint-stock associa- 
tion, in which those who contribute most 
direct the action and management of th« 
concern. The slaveholders contributing in 
an overwhelming proportion to the capital 
strength of the Democratic party, they neces- 
sarily dictate and prescribe its policy. The 
inevitable caucus system enables them to do 
so with a show of fairness and justice. If it 
were possible to conceive for a moment that 
the Democratic party should disobey the be- 
hests of the slaveholders, we should then see 
a withdrawal of the slaveholders, which would 
leave the party to perish. The portion of the 
party which is found in the free States is a 
mere appendage, convenient to modify its 
sectional character, without impairing its sec- 
tional constitution, and is less efl:ective in 
regulating its movement than the nebulous 
tail of the comet is in determining the ap- 
pointed though apparently eccentric course of 
the fiery sphere from which it emanates. 

To expect the Democratic party to resist 
Slavery and favor Freedom, is as unreasonable 
as to look for Protestant missionaries to the 
Catholic Propaganda of Eome. The history 
of the Democratic party commits it to the 
policy of Slavery. It has been the Demo- 
cratic party, and no other agency, which has 
carried that policy iip to its present aiarmmg 
culmination. Without stopping to ascertain, 
critically, the origin of the present Democratic 
party, we may concede its claim to date from 
the era of good feeling which occurred under 
the Administration of President Monroe. At 
that time, in this State, and about that time 
in many others of the free States, the Demo- 
cratic party deliberately disfranchised the 
free colored or African citizen, and it has per- 
tinaciously continued this disfranchisement 
ever since. This was an effective aid to Sla- 
very ; for while the slaveholder votes for his 
slaves against Freedom, the freed slave in the 
free States is prohibited from voting against 
Slavery. 

In 1824, the Democracy resisted the elec- 
tion of John Quincy Adams — himself before 
that time an acceptable Democrat — and in 
1828, it expelled him from the Presidency 
and i)ut a slaveholder in his place, although 
the office had been filled by slaveholders*' 
thirty-two out of forty years. 

In 1836, Martin Van Buren — the first non- 
slaveholding citizen of a free State to whose 
election the Democratic party ever consented 
— signalized his inauguration into the Presi 
dency by a gratuitous announcement, thai 



ander no circumstances would he ever approve 
a bill for the abolition of Slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. From 1838 to 1844, the 
subject of abolishing Slavery in the District 
of Columbia and in the national dock-yards 
and arsenals was brought before Congress by 
repeated popular appeals. The Democratic 
party thereupon promptly denied the right of 
petition, and effectually suppressed the free- 
dom of speech in Congress, so far as the insti- 
tution of Slavery was concerned. 

From 1840 to 1843, good and wise men 
counselled that Texas should remain outside 
of the Union until she should consent to re- 
linquish her self- instituted Slavery ; but the 
Democratic party precipitated her admission 
into the Union, not only without that condi- 
tion, but even with a covenant that the State 
might be divided and reorganized so as to 
constitute four slave States instead of one. 

In 1846, when the United States became in- 
volved in a war with Mexico, and it was ap- 
parent that the struggle would end in the dis- 
memberment of that republic, which was a 
non-slaveholding power, the Democratic party 
rejected a declaration that Slavery should not 
be established within the territory to be ac- 
quired. When, in 1850, governments were 
to be instituted in the Territories of California 
and New Mexico, the fruits of that war, the 
Democratic party refused to admit New Mex- 
ico as a free State, and only consented to ad- 
mit California as a free State on the condition, 
as it has since explained the transaction, of 
leaving all of New Mexico and Utah open to 
Slavery, to which was also added the conces- 
sion of perpetual Slavery in the District of 
Columbia, and the passage of an unconstitu- 
tional, cruel, and humiliating law, for the re- 
capture of fugitive slaves, with a further sti- 
pulation that the subject of Slavery should 
never again be agitated in either chamber of 
Congress. When, in 1854, the slaveholders 
were contentedly reposing on these great ad- 
vantages, then so recently won, the Demo- 
cratic party unnecessarily, officiously, and 
with superserviceable liberality, awakened 
them from their slumber, to offer and force 
on their acceptance the abrogation of the law 
which declared that neither Slavery nor invo- 
luntary servitude should ever exist within 
that part of the ancient territory of Louisiana 
which lay outside of the State of Missouri, 
and north of the parallel of 36° 30' of north 
latitude — a law which, with the exception of 
one other, was the only statute of Freedom 
then remaining in the Federal code. 

In 1856, when the people of Kansas had or- 
ganized a new State within the region thus 
abandoned to Slavery, and applied to be ad- 
mitted as a free State into the Union, the 
Democratic party contemptuously rejected 
their petition, and drove them, with menaces 



and intimidations, from the Halls of Congress, 
and armed the President with military power 
to enforce their submission to a slave code, es- 
tablished over them by fraud and usurpation. 
At every subsequent stage of the long contest 
which has since raged in Kansas, the Demo- 
cratic party has lent its sympathies, its aid, 
and all the powers of the Government wliich 
it controlled, to enforce Slavery upon that 
unwilling and injured people. And now, even 
at this day, while it mocks us with the assur- 
ance that Kansas is free, the Democratic party 
keeps the State excluded from her just and 
proper place in the Union, under the hope 
that she may be dragooned into the accept- 
ance of Slavery. 

The Democratic party, finally, has procured 
from a Supreme Judiciary, fixed in its inte- 
rest, a decree that Slavery exists by force of 
the Constitution in every Territory of the 
United States, paramount to all legislative 
authority, either within the Territory, or re- 
siding in Congress. 

Such is the Democratic party. It has no 
policy. State or Federal, for finance, or trade, 
or manufacture, or commerce, or education, 
or internal improvements, or for the protec- 
tion or even the security of civil or religious 
liberty. It is positive and uncompromising 
in the interest of Slavery — negative, compro- 
mising, and vacillating, in regard to every- 
thing else. It boasts its love of equality, and 
wastes its strength, and even its life, in forti- 
fying the only aristocracy known in the land. 
It professes fraternity, and, so often as Slavery 
requires, allies itself with proscription. It 
magnifies itself for conquests in foreign lands, 
but it sends the national eagle forth always 
with chains, and not the olive branch, in his 
fangs. 

This dark record shows you, fellow-citizens, 
what I was unwilling to announce at an ear- 
lier stage of this argument, that of the whole 
nefarious schedule of slaveholding designs 
which I have submitted to you, the Demo- 
cratic party has left only one yet to be con- 
summated — the abrogation of the laV which 
forbids th6 African slave trade. 

Now, I know very well that the Democratic 
party has, at every stage of these proceedings, 
disavowed ihe motive and the policy of forti- 
fying and extending Slavery, and has excused 
them on entirely different and more plausible 
grounds. But the inconsistency and frivolity 
of these pleas prove still more conclusively 
the guilt I charge upon that party. It must, 
indeed, try to excuse such guilt before man- 
kind, and even to the consciences of its own 
adherents. There is an instinctive abhorrence 
of Slavery, and an inborn and inhering love 
of Freedom in the human heart, which ren- 
der palliation of such gros" misconduct indis- 
pensable. It disfranchised the free African 



6 



on the ground of a fear that, if left to enjoy 
the right of suffrage, he might seduce the free 
white citizen into amalgamation with his 
wronged and despised race. The Democratic 
party condemned and deposed John Qnincy 
Adams, because he expended $12,000,000 a 
year, while it justifies his favored successor in 
spending $70,000,000, $80,000,000, and even 
$100,000,000, a year. It denies emancipation 
in the District of Columbia, even with com- 
pensation to masters and the consent of the 
people, on the ground of an implied constitu- 
tional inhibition, although the Constitution 
expressly confers upon Congress sovereign 
legislative power in that District, and although 
the Democratic party is tenacious of the prin- 
ciple of strict construction. It violated the 
express provisions of the Constitution in sup- 
pressing petition and debate on the subject of 
Slavery, through fear of disturbance of the 
public harmony, although it claims that the 
electors have a right to instruct their repre- 
sentatives, and even demand their resignation 
in cases of contumacy. It extended Slavery 
over Texas, and connived at the attempt to 
spread it across the Mexican territories, even 
to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, under a 
plea of enlarging the area of Freedom. It 
abrogated the Mexican slave law and the Mis- 
souri Compromise prohibition of Slavery in 
Kansas, not to open the new Territories to 
Slavery, but to try therein the new and fasci- 
nating theories of Non-intervention and 
Popular Sovereignty, and, finally, it over- 
threw both these new and elegant systems by 
the English Lecompton bill and the Dred 
Scott decision, on the ground that the free 
States ought not to enter the Union without a 
population equal to the representative basis of 
one member of Congress, although slave 
States might come in without inspection as to 
their numbers. 

Will any member of the Democratic party 
now here claim that the authorities chosen by 
the suffrages of the party transcended their 
partisan platforms, and so misrepresented the 
party in .the various transactions I have re- 
cited ? Then I ask him to name one Demo- 
cratic statesman or legislator, from Van Buren 
to Walker, who either timidly or cautiously 
like them, or boldly and defiantly like 
Douglas, ever refused to execute a behest of 
the slaveholders, and was not therefor, and 
for no other cause, immediately denounced, 
and deposed from his trust, and repudiated 
by the Democratic party for that contu- 
macy. 

I think, fellow-citizens, tliat I have sh®wn 
you that it is high time for the friends of 
Freedom to rush to the rescue of the Con- 
stitution, and that their very first duty is to 
dismiss the Democratic party from the admi- 
nistration of the Government. 



Why shall it not be done ? All agree that 
it ought to be done. What, then, shall pre- 
vent its being done ? Nothing but timidity 
or division of the opponents of the Demo- 
cratic party. 

Some of these opponents start one objec- 
tion, and some another. Let us notice these 
objections briefly. One class say that they 
cannot trust the Eepublican party ; that it 
has not avowed its hostility to Slavery boldly 
enough, or its affection for Freedom earnestly 
enough. 

I ask, in reply, is there any other party 
which can be more safely trusted? Every 
one knows that it is the Republican party, or 
none, that shall displace the Democratic 
party. But I answer, further, that the cha- 
racter and fidelity of any party are deter- 
mined, necessarily, not by its pledges, pro- 
grammes, and platforms, but by the public 
exigencies, and the temper of the people wher 
they call it into activity. Subserviency to 
Slavery is a law written not only on the fore- 
head of the Democratic party, but also in its 
very soul — so resistance to Slavery, and devo- 
tion to Freedom, the popular elements now 
actively working for the Republican party 
among the people, must and will be the re- 
sources for its ever-renewing strength and 
constant invigoration. 

Others cannot support the Republican 
party, because it has not sufiiciently exposed 
its platform, and determined what it will do, 
and what it will not do, when triumphant. 
It may prove too progressive for some, and 
too conservative for others. As if any party 
ever foresaw so clearly the course of future 
events as to plan a universal scheme for future 
action, adapted to all possible emergencies. 
Who would ever have joined even the Whig 
pai'ty of the Revolution, if it had been obliged 
to answer, in 1775, whether it would declare 
for Independence in 1776, and for this noble 
Federal Constitution of ours in 1787, and not 
a year earlier or later ? 

The people of the United States will be as 
wise next year, and the year afterward, and 
even ten years hence, as we are now. They 
will oblige the Republican party to act as the 
public welfare and the interests of justice 
and humanity shall require, through all the 
stages of its career, whether of trial or 
triumph. 

Others will not venture an effort, because 
they fear that the Union would not endure 
the change. Will such objectors tell me how 
long a Constitution can bear a strain directly 
along the fibres of which it is composed? 
This is a Constitution of Freedom. It is 
being converted into a Constitution of Slavery. 
It is a republican Constitution. It is being 
made an aristocratic one. Others wish to 
wait until some collateral questions concern- 



ing temperance, or the exercise of the elective 
franchise are properly settled. Let me ask 
all such persons, whether time enough has 
not been wasted on these points already, 
without gaining any other than this single ad- 
vantage, namely, the discovery that only one 
thing can be effectually done at one time, and 
that the one thing which must and will be 
done at any one time is just that thing which 
is most urgent, and will no longer admit of 
postponement or delay. Finally, we are told 
by faint-hearted men that they despond ; the 
Democratic party, they say, is unconquerable, 
and the dominion of Slavery is consequently 
inevitable. I reply to them, that the com- 
plete and universal dominion of Slavery 
would be intolerable enough when it should 
have come after the last possible effort to 
escape should have been made. There would, 
in that case, be left to us. the consoling reflec- 
tion of fidelity to duty. 

But I reply, further, that I know — few, I 
think, know better than I — the resources and 
ienergies of the Democratic party, which is 
identical with the Slave Power. I do ample 
prestige to its traditional popularity. I know, 
further — few, I think, know better than I — 
the difficulties and disadvantages of organiz- 
ing a new political force like the Republican 
party, and the obstacles it must encounter in 
laboring without prestige and without patron- 
age. But, notwithstanding all this, I know 
that the Democratic party must go down, and 
that the Republican party must rise into its 
place. The Democratic party derived its 
strength, o/iginally, from its adoption of the 
principles of equal and exact justice to all 
men. So long as it practised this principle 
faithfully, it was invulnerable. It became 
vulnerable when it renounced the principle, 
and since that time it has maintained itself, 
not by virtue of its own strength, or even of 
its traditional merits, but because there as yet 
had appeared in the political field no other 



party that had the conscience and the courage 
to take up, and avow, and practise the life- 
inspiring principle which the Democratic 
party had surrendered. At last, the Repub- 
lican party lias appeared. It avows now, as 
the Republican party of 1800 did, in one 
word, its faith and its works, "Equal and 
exact justice to all men." Even when it first 
entered the field, only half organized, it 
struck a blow wiiich only just failed to secur©^ 
complete and triumphant victory. In this, 
its second campaign, it has already won advan- 
tages which render that triumph now both 
easy and certain. 

The secret of its assured success lies in that; 
very characteristic which, in the mouth of 
scoffers, constitutes its great and lasting imbe- 
cility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it 
is a party of one idea; but that idea is a noble 
one — an idea that fills and expands all gene- 
rous souls ; the idea of equality — the equality 
of all men before human tribunals and human 
laws, as they all are equal before the Divine- 
tribunal and Divine laws. 

I know, and yon know, that a revolution, 
has begun. I know, and all the world knows, 
that revolutions never go backward. Twenty 
Senators and a hundred Representatives pro- 
claim boldly in Congress to-day sentiments 
and opinions and prmciples of Freedom which 
hardly so many men, even in this free State, 
dared to utter in their own homes twenty 
years ago. While the Government of the 
United States, under the conduct of the 
Democratic party, has been all that time sur- 
rendering one plain and castle after another 
to Slavery, the people of the United States 
have been no less steadily and perseveringly 
gathering together the forces with which to 
recover back again all the fields and all the 
castles which have been lost, and to confound 
and overthrow, by one decisive blow, the 
betrayers of the Constitution and Freedom 
forever. 



"Negro Slavery not Unjust." 

A SPEECH BY CHAELES O'CONOR 

AT THE UNION MEETING 

AT THE AOADKMY" OF MUSIC, NEW YORK CITY, DEC. 19, 1859. 



Me. Mayor and Gentlemen : — I cannot ex- 
press to you the delight which I experience 
in beholding in this great city so vast an as- 
sembly of my fellow citizens, convened for 
the purpose stated in your resolutions. I am 
delighted beyond measure to behold at this 
time so vast an assembly responding to the 
call of a body so respectable as the twenty 
thousand New Yorkers who have convened 
this meeting. If anything can give assurance 
to those who doubt, and confidence to those 
who may have had misgivings as to the per- 
manency of our institutions, and the solidity 
of the support which the people of the North 
are prepared to give them, it is that in the 
queen city of the New World, in the capital 
of North America, there is assembled a meet- 
ing so large, so respectable, and so unanimous 
as this meeting has shown itself to be in re- 
ceiving sentiments which, if observed, must 
protect our Union from destruction, and even 
from danger. (Applause.) Gentlemen, is it not 
a subject of astonishment that the idea of 
danger, and the still more dreadful idea of 
dissolution, should be heard from the lips of 
an American citizen, at this day, in reference 
to, or in connection with, the sacred name of 
this most sacred Union ? (Applause.) Why 
gentlemen, what is our Union ? What are its 
antecedents ? What is its present condition ? 
If we ward off the evils which threaten it, 
what its future hope for us and for the great 
family of mankind ? Why, gentlemen, it may 
well be said of this Union as a government, 
that as it is the last offspring, so is it Time's 
most glorious and beneficent production. Gen- 
tlemen, we are created by an Omniscient 
Being. We are created by a Being not only 
All-Seeing, but AU-Powerful and All- Wise. 
And in the benignity and the farseeing wis- 
dom of His power, He permitted the great 
family of mankind to live on, to advance, to 
improve, step by step, and yet permitted five 
thousand years and upward to elapse ere He 
laid the foundatinn of a truly free, a truly 
happy, and a truly independent empire. It 
was not, gentlemen, until that great length of 
time had elapsed, that the earth was deemed 
mature for laying the fouiidations of this 
mighty and prosperous State. It was then 
that He inspired the noble-minded and chival- 
rous Genoese to set forth upon the trackless 



ocean and discover the empire that we now 
enjoy. But a few years, comparatively, had 
elapsed when there was raised up in this 
blessed land a set of men whose like had never 
before existed upon the face of this earth. 
Men unequalled in their perceptions of the 
true principles of justice, in their comprehen- 
sive benevolence, in their capacity to lay 
safely, justly, soundly, and with all the qua- 
lities which should insure permanency, the 
foundations of an empire. It was in 177<>, 
and in this country, that there assembled the 
first, the very first, assembly of rational men 
who ever proclaimed, in clear and undeniable 
form, the immutable principles of liberty, and 
consecrated, to all time I trust, in the face of 
tyrants, and in opposition to their power, the 
rights of nations and the rights of men. (Ap- 
plause.) These patriots, as soon as the storm 
of war had passed away, sat down and framed 
that instrument upon which our Union rests, 
the Constitution of the United States of Ame- 
rica. (Applause.) And the question now be- 
fore us is neither more nor less than this : 
whether that Constitution, consecrated by the 
blood shed in that glorious Revolution, con- 
secrated by the signature of the most illus- 
trious man who ever lived, George Washing- 
ton (applause) — whether that instrument, 
accepted by the wisest and by the best of that 
day, and accepted in convention, one by one, 
in each and every State of this Union — that 
instrument from which so many blessings 
have flown — whether that instrument was 
conceived in crime, is a' chapter of abomina- 
tions (cries of "No, no"), is a violation of 
justice, is a league between strong-handed but 
wicked-hearted white men to oppress, and im- 
poverish, and plunder their fellow-creatures, 
contrary to rectitude, honor and justice. (Ap- 
plause.) This is the question, neither more 
nor less. We are told from pulpits, we are 
told from the political rostrum, we are told 
in the legislative assemblies of our Northern 
States, not merely by speakers, but by distinct 
resolutions of the whole body — we are told by 
gentlemen occupying seats in the Congress of 
the Union through the votes of Northern peo- 
ple — that the Constitution seeks to enshrine, 
to protect, to defend a monstrous crime 
against justice and humanity, and that it is 
our duty to defeat its provisions, to outwit. 



them, if we cannot otherwise get rid of their 
effect, and to trample upon the rights which it 
nas declared shall be protected and insured to 
9ur brethren of the South. (Applause.) That is 
ihe doctrine now advocated. And I ask wheth- 
er that doctrine, necessarily involving the 
destruction of our Union, shall be permitted to 
prevail as it has hitherto prevailed ? Gentle- 
men, I trust you will excuse me for deliberately 
coming up to and meeting this question — not 
seeking to captivate your fancies by a trick of 
words — not seeking to exalt your imaginations 
by declamation or by any effort at eloquence 
— but meeting this question gravely, sedately, 
and soberly, and asking you what is to be our. 
course in relation to it? Gentlemen, the Con- 
stitution guarantees to the people of the 
Southern States the protection of their slave 
property. In that respect it is a solemn com- 
pact between the North and the South. As 
a solemn compact, are we at liberty to violate 
it ? (Cries of " No, no !") Are we at liberty 
to seek or take any mean, petty advantage of 
it ? (Cries of " No ! no !") Are we at liberty 
to con over its particular words, and to re- 
strict and to limit its operation, so as to acquire 
under such narrow construction, a pretence of 
right by hostile and adverse legislation? 
("No! no!") — to interfere with the interests, 
wound the feelings, and trample on the politi- 
cal rights of our Southern fellow- citizens ? 
(" No ! no ! no !") No, gentlemen. If it be a 
compact, and has anything sacred in it, we 
are bound to observe it in good faith, honestly 
and honorably, not merely to the letter, but 
fully to the spirit, and not in any mincing, 
half-way, unfair, or illiberal construction, 
seeking to satisfy the letter, to give as little 
as we can, and thereby to defeat the spirit. 
(Applause.) That may be the way that some 
men keep a contract about the sale of a house 
or of a chattel, but it is not the way honest 
men observe contracts, even in relation to the 
most trivial things. ('' True," and applause.) 
What has been done, having a tendency to 
disturb harmony under this Constitution, and 
to break down and destroy the union now ex- 
isting between these States ? Why, gentle- 
men, at an early period the subject of slavery, 
as a mere philosophical question, was dis- 
cussed by many, and its justice or injustice 
made the subject of argument leading to 
various opinions. It mattered little how long 
this discussion should last, while it was con- 
fined within such limits. If it had only led 
to the formation of societies like the Shakers, 
who do not believe in matrimony ; societies 
like the people of Utah, destined to a short 
career, who believe in too much of it (laugh- 
ter) ; or societies of people like the strong- 
minded women of our country, who believe 
that women are much better qualified than 
men to perform the functions and offices usu- 
ally performed by men (laughter) — and who 



probably would, if they had their way, sintjAy 
change the order of proceedings, and transfer 
the husband to the kitchen, and themselves 
to the field or the cabinet. (Laughter and 
applause.) So long, I say, as this sentimen- 
tality touching slavery confined itself to the 
formation of parties and societies of this des- 
cription, it certainly could do no great harm, 
and we might satisfy ourselves with the 
maxim that " Error can do little harm as long 
as truth is left free to combat it." But unfor- 
tunately, gentlemen, this sentimentality has 
found its way out of the meeting- houses — from 
among pious people, assemblies of speculative 
philosophers, and societies formed to benefit 
the inhabitants of Barioboola-gha — it has 
found its way into the heart of the selfish 
politician ; it has been made the war-cry ot 
party ; it has been made the instrument 
whereby to elevate not merely to personal 
distinction and social rank, but to political 
power. Throughout the non-slaveholding 
States of this Union, men have been thus ele- 
vated who advocate a course of conduct neces- 
sarily exasperating the South, and the natural 
effect of whose teachings renders the Southern 
people insecure in their property and their 
lives, making it a matter of doubt each night 
whether they can safely retire to their slum- 
bers without sentries and guards to protect 
them against incursions from the North. I 
say the effect has been to elevate, on the 
strength of this sentiment, such men to power. 
And what is the result — the condition of 
things at this day? Why, gentlemen, the 
occasion that calls us together is the occur- 
rence of a raid upon the State of Virginia by 
a few misguided fanatics — followers of these 
doctrines, with arms in their hands, and bent 
upon rapine and murder. I called them fol- 
lowers, but they should be deemed leaders. 
They were the best, the bravest, and the most 
virtuous of all the abolition party. (Ap- 
plause.) On the Lord's day, at the hour of 
still repose, they armed the bondman with 
pikes brought from the North, that he might 
slay his master, his master's wife, and his 
master's little children. And immediately 
succeeding to it — at this very instant — what 
is the political question pending before Con- 
gress ? 

A book substantially encouraging the same 
course of provocation toward the South which 
has been long pursued, is openly recommended 
to circulation by sixty-eight members of your 
Congress. (Cries of " Shame on them," ap- 
plause, and hisses.) Kecommended to circu- 
lation by sixty-eight members of your Con- 
gress, all elected in Northern States (hisses 
and applause) — every one, I say, elected from 
non-slaveholding States. And with the assist- 
ance of their associates, some of whom hold 
their offices by your votes, there is great dan- 
ger that they will oloct to the highest office 



10 



m that body, where he will sit as a represen- 
lative of the wliole North, a raaa who uQited 
in causing that book to be distributed through 
foe South, carrying poison and death in its 
Polluted leaves. ("Hang him," and applause.) 
Is it not fair to say that this great and glori- 
ous Union is menaced when such a state of 
things is found to exist ? when such an act is 
attempted ? Is it reasonable to expect that 
Dur brethren of tlie South will calmly sit down 
(" No ") and submit quietly to such an out- 
rage ? (Cries of " No, no.") Why, gentle- 
men, we greatly exceed them in numbers. 
The non-slavoholding States are by far the 
more populous ; they are increasing daily in' 
numbers and in population and we may soon 
overwhelm the Southern vote. If we con- 
tinue to fill the halls of legislation with aboli- 
tionists, and ]iermit to occupy the executive 
chair men who declare themselves to be en- 
listed in a crusade against slavery, and against 
the provisions of the Constitution which se- 
cure that species of property, what can we 
reasonably expect from the people of the South 
but that they will pronounce the Constitution 
_ — with all its glorious associations, with all 
its sacred memories — this Union, with its 
manifold present and promised blessings — an 
. unendurable evil, threatening to crush and to 
destroy their most vital interests — to make 
their country a wilderness. Why should we 
expect them to submit to such a line of con- 
duct on our part, and recognize us as brethren, 
or unite with us in perpetuating the Union ? 

For my part I do not see anything unjust or 
unreasonable in the declaration often made by 
Southern members on this subject. They tell 
us: "If you will thus assail us with incen- 
diary pamphlets, if you will thus create a 
spirit in your country which leads to violence 
and bloodshed among us, if you will assail the 
institution upon which the prosperity of our 
country depends, and will elevate to ofiice 
ever us men who are pledged to aid in such 
transactions, and to oppress us by hostile le- 
gislation, we cannot — much as we revere the 
Constitution, greatly as we estimate the bless- 
ings which would flow from its faithful en- 
forcement — we cannot longer depend on your 
compliance with its injunctions, or adhere to 
the Union." For my part, gentlemen, if the 
North continues to conduct itself in the selec- 
tion of representatives to the Congress of the 
United States as, from, perhaps, a certain de- 
gree of negligence and inattention, it has here- 
tofore conducted itself, the South is not to be 
censured if it withdraws from the Union. 
(Hisses and applause. A voice — "that's so." 
Three cheers for the Fugitive Slave Law) We 
are not, gentlemen, to hold a meeting to say 
that " We love this Union ; we delight in it ; 
we are proud of it; it blesses us, and we en- 
oy it ; but we sliall fill all its offices with men 
.rf our own chooBing, and, our brethren of the 



I South, you shall enjoy its glorious past; yoc 
'shall enjoy its mighty recollections; but it 
shall trample your institutions in the dust." 
We have no right to say it. We have no 
right to exact so much ; and an opposite and 
entirely different course, fellow-citizens, must 
be ours — must be the course of the great 
North, if we would preserve this Union. 
(xVpplause, and cries of " Good.") 

And, gentlemen, what is this glorious Un- 
ion ? What must we sacrifice if we exaspe- 
rate our brethren of the South, and compel 
them, by injustice and breach of compact, to 
separate from us and to dissolve it? Why, 
gentlemen, the greatness and glory of the 
American name will then be a thing of yes- 
terday. The glorious Revolution of the thir- 
teen States will be a Revolution not achieved 
by us, but by a nation that has ceased to ex- 
ist. The name of Washington will be, to lis 
at least at the North (cheers), but as name of 
Julius Coesar, or of some other great hero who 
has lived in times gone by, whose nation has 
perished and exists no more. The Declaration 
of Independence, what will that be ? Why, 
the declaration of a State that no longer has 
place among the nations. All these bright 
and glorious recollections of the past must 
cease to be our property, and become mere 
memorials of a by-gone race and people. A 
line must divide the North from the South. 
What will be the consequences? Will this 
mighty city — growing as it now is, with 
weath pouring into it from every portion of 
this mighty empire — will it continue to flour- 
ish as it has done? (Cries of "No, no!") 
Will your marble palaces that line Broadway, 
and raise their proud tops toward the sky, 
continue to increase, until, as is now pro- 
mised under the Union, it shall present the 
most glorious picture of wealth, prosierity, 
and happiness, that the world has ever seen ? 
(Applause.) No ! gentlemen, no ! such things 
cannot be. I do not say that we will starve, 
that we will perish, as a people, if we sepa- 
rate from the South. I admit, that if the line 
be drawn between us, they will have their 
measure of prosperity, and we will have ours ; 
but meagre, small in the extreme, compared 
with what is existing, and promised under our 
Union, will be the prosperity of each. 

Truly has it been said here to-night, that 
we were made for each other ; separate us, 
and although you may not destroy us, you re- 
duce each to so low a scale that well might 
humanity deplore the evil courses that 
brought about the result. True, gentlemen, 
we would have left, to boast of, our share of 
the glories of the Revolution. The Northern 
States sent forth to the conflict their bands of 
heroes, and shed their blood as freely as those 
of the South. But the dividing line would 
take away from us the grave of Washington, 
it is in his own beloved Virginia. (ApplauBf 



11 



and cheers.) It is in the State and near the I 
spot where this treason that has been grow- 
ing up in the North, so lately culminated in 
violence and bloodshed. We would lose the 
grave— we would lose all connection with the 
name of Washington. But our philanthropic 
and pious friends who fain would lead us to 
this result, would, of coutse, comfort us with 
the consoling reflection that we had the glo- 
rious memory of John Brown in its place. 
(Great laughter and cheers.) Are you, gen- 
tlemen, prepared to make the exchange ? 
(Cries of "No, no.") Shall the tomb of 
Washington, that rises upon the bank of the 
Potomac, receiving its tribute fi-om every na- 
tion of the earth — shall that become the pro- 
perty of ia foreign Ssate— a State hostile to us 
in its feelings, and we to it in ours ? Shall 
we erect a monument among the arid hills at 
North Elba, and deem the privilege of mak- 
ing pilgrimages thither a recompense for the 
loss of every glorious recollection of the past, 
and for our severance from the name of Wash- 
mgton ? He who is recognized as the Father 
■if his Country? (Cries of "No, no," and 
cheers.) No, gentlemen, we are not prepared, 
I trust, for this sad exchange, this fatal seve- 
rance. We are not pr-epared, I trust, either 
to part with our glorious past or to give up 
the advantages of our present happy condi- 
tion. We are not prepared to relinquish our 
affection for the South, nor to involve our 
section in the losses, the deprivation of bless- 
ings and advantages necessarily resulting to 
each from disunion. Gentlemen, we never 
would have attained the wealth and prospe- 
rity as a nation which is now ours, but for our 
connection with these very much reviled and in- 
jured slaveholders of the Southern States. And, 
gentlemen, if dissolution is to take place, we must 
part with the trade of the South, and thereby sur- 
render our participation iu the wealth of the 
South. Nay, more — we are told from good au- 
thority that we must not only part with the slave- 
holding States, but that our younger sister with 
the golden crown — rich, teeming California, she 
who added the final requisite to our greatness as 
a nation — will not come with us. She will re- 
main with the South. 

Gentlemen, if we allow this course of injustice 
toward the South to continue, these are to be the 
consequences — evil to us, evil also to them. Much 
of all that we are most proud of; much of all 
that contributes to our prosperity and greatness 
as a nation, must pass away from us. 

The question is — Should we permit it to be 
continued, and submit to all these evils ? Is there 
any reason to justify such a course ? There is a 
reason preached to us for permitting it. We are 
told that slavery is unjust; we are told that it is 
a matter of conscience to put it down ; and that 
whatever treaties or compacts, or laws, or consti- 
tutions, have been made to sanction and uphold 
it, it If. still unholy, and that we are bound to 
trample upon treaties, compacts, laws, and consti- 
tutions, and to stand by what these men arro- 



gantly tell U.S is the law of God and a fundamental 
principle of natural justice. Indeed, gentlemen, 
these two things are not distinguishable. The 
The law of God and natural justice, as between 
man and man, are one and the same. The 
wisest philosophers of ancient times — heathen 
philosophers — said, The rule of conduct between 
man and man is, to live honestly, to injure no 
man, and to render to every man his due. In 
words far more direct and emphatic, in words of 
the most perfect comprehensiveness, the Saviour 
of the world gave us the same rule in one short 
sentence — " Love thy neig^jbor as thyself" (Ap. 
plause.) Now, speaking between us, people of 
the North and our brethren of the South, I ask 
you to act upon this maxim — the maxim of the 
heathen — the command of the living God: "Ren- 
der to every man his due," " Love thy neighbor 
as thyself." (Applause.) Thus we should act 
and feel toward the South. Upon that majcim 
which came from Him of Nazareth we should act 
toward the South, but without putting upon it 
any new-fangled, modern interpretation. We 
should neither say nor think that any Gospel min- 
ister of this day is wiser than God himself — than 
He who gave us the Gospel. These maxims 
should govern between us and our brethren of the 
South. But, gentlemen, the question is this : Do 
these maxims justify the assertion of those who 
seek to invade the rights of the South, by pro- 
claiming negro slavery unjust ? That is the point 
to which this great argument, involving the fate 
of our Union, must now come. Is negro slavery 
unjust? If it be unjust, it violates the first rule 
of human conduct, "Render to every man his 
due." If it be unjust, it violates the law of God 
which says, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," for 
that law requires that we should perpetrate no 
injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be maintained 
that negro slavery is unjust, is thus in conflict 
with the law of nature and the law of God, per- 
haps I might be prepared — perhaps we all ought 
to be prepared to go with that distinguished man 
to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 
there is a " higher law " which compels us to tram- 
ple beneath our feet, as a wicked and unholy com- 
pact, the Constitution established by our fathers, 
with all the blessings it secures to their children. 
But I insist — and that is the argument which we 
must meet, and on which we must come to a con- 
clusion that shall govern our action in the future 
selection of representatives in the Congress of the 
United States — 1 insist that negro slavery is not 
unjust. (Long continued applause.) It is not un- 
just ; it is just, wise, and benejicent. (Hisses, fol- 
lowed by applause, and cries of " Put him out."J 
Let him stay, gentlemen. 

President — Let him stay there. Order. 

Mr. O'Conor— Serpents may hiss, but good men 
will hear. (Cries again of " Put him out ;" calls 
to order; confusion for a time.) 

The President — If anybody hisses here, re- 
member that every one has his own peculiar way 
of expressing himself, and as some birds only 
understand hissing, they must hiss. (Applause.) 

Mr. O'Conor — Gentlemen, there is an animal 
upon this earth that has no faculty of making its 
sentiments known iu any other way than by a 
hiss. I am for equal rights. (Three cheers were 



12 



here given for Mr. O'Conor. three for Gov. Wise, 
and three groans for John Brown.) I beg of you, 
gentlemen, all of you who are of my mind at least, 
to preserve silence, and leave the hissing animal 
in the full enjoyment of his natural privileges. 
(Cries of " Good, good," laughter and applause.) 
The first of our race that offended was taught to 
do so by that hi^ising animal. (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) The first human society that was ever 
broken up through sin and discord, had its happy 
union dissolved by the entrance of that animal. 
(Applause.) Therefore, I say it is his privilege to 
hiss. Let him hiss on. (Cries of " Good, good," 
laughter and applause.) Gentlemen, I will not 
detain you much longer. (Cries of " Go on, go 
on.") I maintain that negro slavery is not un- 
just— (a voice — "No, sir," applause,) that it is 
benign in its influences upon the white man and 
upon the black. (Voices — " That's so, that's so," 
applause.) I maintain that it is ordained by na- 
ture ; that it is a necessity of both races ; that, in 
climates where the black race can live and pros- 
per, nature herself enjoins correlative duties on 
the black man and on the white, which can- 
not be performed except by the preservation, 
and, if the hissing gentleman please, the perpetua- 
tion of negro slavery. 

I am fortified in this opinion by the highest 
tribunal in our country, that venerable exponent 
of our institutions, and of the principles of justice 
— the Supreme Court of the United States. That 
court has held, on this subject, what wise men 
will ever pronounce to be sound and just doctrine. 
There are some principles well known, well under- 
stood, universally recognized and universally ac- 
knowledged among men, that are not to be found 
written in constitutions or in laws. The people 
of the United States, at the formation of our 
Government, were, as they still are, in some sense, 
peculiar and radically distinguishable from other 
nations. We were white men, of — what is com- 
monly called, by way of distinction — the Cauca- 
sian race. We were a monogamous people ; that 
is to say, we were not Mohammedans, or followers 
of Joe Smith — with half a dozen wives apiece. 
(Laughter.) It was a fundamental principle of 
our civilization that no State could exist or be 
tolerated in this Union which should not, in that 
respect, resemble all the other States of the Union. 
Some other distinctive features might be stated 
which serve to mark us as a people distinct from 
others, and incapable of associating on terms of 
perfect political equality or social equality, as 
friends and fellow-citizens, with soine kinds of 
people that are to be found upon the face of the 
earth. As a white nation, we made our Constitu- 
tion and our laws, vesting all political rights in 
that race. They, and they alone, constituted, in 
every poliiical sense, the American people. (Ap- 
plause.) As to the negro, why, we allowed him 
to live under the shadow and protection of our 
laws. We gave him, as we were bound to give 
him, protection against wrong and outrage; but 
we denied to him political rights, or the power to 
govern. We left him, for so long a period as the 
community in which he dwelt s"hould so order, in 
the condition of a bondman. (Applause.) Now, 
gentlemen, to that condition the negro is assigned 



by nature. (Cries of " Bravi» " and " That's so,'* 
and applause.) Experience shows that his race 
cannot prosper — that they become extinct in any 
cold, or in any very temperate clime ; but in the 
warm, the extremely warm regions, his race can 
be perpetuated, and with proper guardianship, 
may prosper. He has ample strength, and is 
competent to labor, but nature denies to him 
either the intellect to govern or the willinngess 
to work. (Applause.) Both were denied him. 
That same power which deprived him of the will 
to labor, gave him, in our country, as a recom- 
pense, a master to coerce that duty, and convert 
him into a useful and valuable servant. (Ap- 
plause.) I maintain that it is n-ot injustice to 
leave the negro in the condition in which nature 
placed him, and for which alone he is adapted. 
Fitted only for a state of pupilage, our slave 
system gives him a master to govern him and to 
supply his deficiencies : in this there is no injus- 
tice. Neither is it unjust in the master to compel 
him to labor, and thereby afford to that master a 
just compensation in return for the care and 
talent employed in governing him. In this way 
alone is the negro enabled to render himself use- 
ful to himself and to the society in which he is 
placed. 

These are the principles, gentlemen, which the 
extreme measures of 'abolitionism compel us to 
enforce. This is the ground that we must take, 
or abandon our cherished Union. We mus-t no 
longer favor political leaders who talk about 
negro slavery being an evil ; nor must we advance 
the indefensible doctrine that negro slavery is a 
thing which, although pernicious, is to be toler- 
ated merely because we have made a bargain to 
tolerate it. We must turn away from the teach- 
ings of fanaticism. We must look at negro sla- 
very as it is, remembering that the voice of inspi- 
ration, as found in the sacred volume, nowhere 
condemns the bondage of those who are fit only 
for bondage. Yielding to the clear decree of 
nature, and the dictates of sound philosophy, we 
must pronounce that institution just, benign, law- 
ful and proper. The Constitution established by 
the fathers of our Republic, which recognized it, 
must be maintained. And that both may stand 
together, we must maintain that neither the insti- 
tution itself, nor the Constitution which upholds 
it, is wicked or unjust ; but that each is sound 
and wise, and entitled to our fullest support. 

We must visit with our execration any man 
claiming our suffrages, who objects to enforcing, 
with entire good faith, the provisions of the Con- 
stitution in favor of negro slavery, or who seeks, 
by any indirection, to withhold its protection 
from the South, or to get away from its obliga- 
tions upon the North. Let us henceforth support 
no man for public office whose speech or action 
tends to induce assaults upon the territory of our 
Southern neighbors, or to generate insurrection 
within their borders. (Loud applause.) These 
are the principles upon which we must act. This 
is what we must say to our brethren of the South. 
If we have sent men into Congress who are false 
to these views, and are seeking to violate the 
compact which binds us together, we must ask to 
be forgiven until we have another chance to mani 



13 



fest our will 8.t the ballot-boxes. We must tell 
them that these men shall be consigned to privacy 
(applause), and that true men, men faithful to the 
Constitution, men loving all portions of the coun- 
try alike, shall be elected in their stead. And, 
gentlemen, we must do more than promise this — 
we must perform it. (Loud applause, followed by 
three cheers for Mr. O'Conor, and a tiger.) But 
a word more, gentlemen, and I have done. (Cries 
of " Go on.") I have no doubt at all that what I 
have Baid to you this evening will be greatly mis- 
represented. It is very certain that I have not 
had time enough properly to enlarge upon and 
fully to explain the interesting topics on which I 
have ventured to express myself thus boldly and 
distinctly, taking upon myself the conseqmences, 
be they what they may. (Applause.) But I will 
say a few words by way of explanation. I have 
maintained the justice of slavery; I have main- 
tained it, because I hold that the negro is decreed 
by nature to a state of pupilage under the domi- 
nion of the wiser white man, in every clime where 
God and nature meant the negro should live at 
all. (Applause.) I say a state of pupilage ; and, 
that I may be rightly understood, I say that it is 
the duty of the white man to treat him kindly ; 
that it is the interest of the white man to treat 
him kindly. (Applause.) And further, it is my 
belief that if the white man, in the States where 
slavery exists, is not interfered with by the fana- 
tics who are now creating these disturbances, 
whatever laws, whatever improvements, whatever 
variations in the conduct of society are necessary 
for the purpose of enforcing in every instance the 
dictates of interest and humanity, as between the 
white man and the black, will be faithfully and 
fairly carried out in the progress of that improve- 
ment in all these things in which we are engaged. 
It is not pretended that the master has a right to 
slay his slave ; it is not pretended that he has a 
right to be guilty of harshness and inhumanity to 
his slave. The laws of all the Southern States for- 
bid that : we have not the right here at the North 
to be guilty of cruelty toward a horse. It is an 
indictable offence to commit such cruelty. The 
same laws exist in the South, and if there is any 
failure in enforcing them to the fullest extent, it 
is due to this external force, which is pressing 
upon the Southern States, and compels them to 
abstain perhaps from many acts beneficent toward 
the negro which otherwise would be performed. 
(Applause.) In truth, in fact, in deed, the white 
man in the slaveholding States has no more 
authority by the law of the land over his slave 
than our laws allow to a father over his minor 
children. He can no more violate humanity with 
respect to them, than a father in any of the free 
States of this Union can exercise acts violative of 
humanity toward his own son under the age of 
twenty-one. So far as the law is concerned, you 
own your boys, and have a right to their services 
until they are twenty-one. You can make them 
work for you ; you have the right to hire out their 
services and take their earnings; you have the 
right to chastise them with judgment and reason 
if they violate your commands ; and they are en- 
tirely without political rights. Not one of them 
at the age of twenty years and eleven months 



even, can go to the polls and give a vote. There- 
fore, gentlemen, before the law, there is but one 
difference between the free white man of twenty 
years of age in the Northern States, and the 
negro bondman in the Southern States. The 
white man is to be emancipated at twenty-one, 
because his God-given intellect entitles him to 
emancipation and fits him for the duties to de- 
volve upon him. The negro, to be sure, is a 
bondman for life. He may be sold from one mas- 
ter to another, but where is the ill in that? — one 
may be as good as another. If there be laws 
with respect to the mode of sale, which by sepa- 
rating man and wife do occasionally lead to that 
which shocks humanity, and may be said to vio- 
late all propriety and all conscience — if such 
things are done, let the Sbuth alone and they will 
correct the evil. Let our brethren of the South 
take care of their own domestic institutions and 
they will do it. (Applause ) They will so govern 
themselves as to suppress acts of this description, 
if they are occasionally committed, as perhaps 
they are, and we must all admit that they are con- 
trary to just conceptions of right and humanity. 
I have never yet heard of a nation conquered from 
evil practices, brought to the light of civilization, 
brought t» the light of religion or the knowledge 
of the Gospel by the bayonet, by the penal laws, 
or by external persecutions of any kind. It is 
not by declamation and outcry against a people 
from those abroad and outside of their territory 
that you can improve their manners or their 
morals in any respect. No ; if, standing outside 
of their territory, you attack the errors of a peo- 
ple, you make them cling to their faults. From 
a sentiment somewhat excusable — somewhat akin 
to self respect and patriotism — they will resist 
their nation's enemy. Let our brethren of the 
South alone, gentlemen, and if there be any 
errors of this kind, they will correct them. 

There is but one way in which you can thus 
leave them to the guidance of their own judg- 
ment — by which you can retain them in this 
Union as our brethren, and perpetuate this glori- 
ous Union ; and that is, by resolving — without 
reference to the political party or faction to 
which any one of you may belong, without refer- 
ence to the name, political or otherwise, which you 
may please to bear — resolving that the man, be 
he who he may, who advocates the doctrine that 
negro slavery is unjust, and ought to be assailed 
or legislated against, or who agitates the subject 
of extinguishing negro slavery in any of its forms 
as a political hobby, that that man shall be denied 
your suffrages, arid not only denied your suffrages, 
but that you will select from the ranks of the op- 
posite party, or your own, if necessary, the mar, 
you like least, who entertains opposite sentiments, 
but through whose instrumentality you may be 
enabled to defeat his election, and to secure in 
the councils of the nation men who are true to 
the Constitution, who are lovers of the Union — 
men who cannot be induced by considerations of 
imaginary benevolence for a people who really do 
not desire their aid, to sacrifice or to jeopard in 
any degree the blessings we enjoy under thia 
Union. May it be perpetual. 

(Great and continued cheering.) 



14 



THE REAL QUESTION STATED. 



LETTER FROM CHARLES O'CONOR TO A COMMITTEE OF MERCHANTS. 



Nrw York, Dec. 20, 1859. 

Chas. O'Conor, Esq. : The undersigned, being desirous 
of circulating as widely as possible, both at the North and 
at the South, the proceedings of the Union Meeting held at 
the Academy of Music last evening, intend publishing in 
pamphlet form, for distribution, a correct copy of the same. 

Will you be so kind as to inform us whether this step 
meets your approval; and if so, furnish us with a cor- 
rected report of your speech delivered by you on that occa- 
eion. Yours respectfully, 

LEITCH, BURNET & CO., 
GEO. W. & JEUIAL READ, 
BKUFF, BROTHER & SEAVER, 
C. B. HATCH & CO., 
DAVIS, NOBLE & CO., 

(Formerly Furman, Davis & Co., 
WESSON & COX, 
CRONIN, HURXTHAL & SEARS, 
ATWATER, MULFORD & CO. 

Gentlemen : The measure you propose 
meets my entire approval. 

I have long thought that our disputes con- 
cerning negro slavery would soon terminate, 
if the public mind could be drawn to the true 
issue, and steadily fixed upon it. To eftect this 
object was the sole aim of my address. 

Though its ministers can never permit the 
law of the land to be questioned by private 
judgment, there is, nevertheless, such a thing 
as natural justice. Natural justice has the Di- 
vine sanction ; and it is impossible that any 
human law which conflicts with it should long 
endure. 

Where mental enlightenment abounds, 
where morality is professed by all, where the 
mind is free, speech is free, and the press is 
free, is it impossible, in the nature of things, 
that a law which is admitted to conflict with 
natural justice, and with God's own mandate, 
should loug endure? 

You all will admit that, within certain 
limits, at least, our Constitution does contain 
positive guarantees for the preservation of ne- 
gro slavery in tiie old States through all time, 
unless the local legislatures shall think fit to 
abolish it. And, consequently, if negro slavery, 
however humanely administered or judicious- 
ly regulated, be an institution which conflicts 
with natural justice and with God's law, 
surely the most vehement and extreme admi- 
rers of John Brown's sentiments are right ; 
and their denunciations against the Constitu- 
tion, and against the most hallowed names 
connected with it, are perfectly justifiable. 

The friends of truth — the patriotic Ameri- 
cans who would sustain their country's honor 
against foreign rivalry, and defend their coun- 



try's interests against all assailants, err greatly 
when they contend with these men on any 
point but one. Their general principles can- 
not be refuted ; their logic is irresistible ; the 
errror, if any there be, is in their premises. 
They assert that negro slavery is unjust. This, 
and this alone, of all they say, is capable of 
being fairly argued against. 

If this proposition cannot be refuted, our 
Union cannot endure, and it ought not to en- 
dure. 

Our negro bondmen can neither be exter- 
minated nor transported to Africa. They are 
too numerous for either proces.s, and either, if 
practicable, would involve a violation of hu- 
manity. If they were emancipated, they would 
relapse into barbarism, or a set of negro States 
would arise in our midst, possessing political 
equality, and entitled to social equality. The 
division of parties would soon make the negro 
members a powerful body in Congress — would 
place some of them in high political stations, 
and occasionally let one into the Executive 
chair. 

It is in vain to say tjat this could be en- 
dured ; it is simply impossible. 

"What then remains to be discussed ? 

The negro race is upon us. With a Consti- 
tution which held them in bondage, our Fede- 
ral Union might be preserved ; but if so hold- 
ing them in bondage be a thing forbidden by 
God and Nature, we cannot lawfully so hold 
them, and the Union must perish. 

This is the inevitable result of that conflict 
which has now reached its climax. 

Among us at the North, the sole question 
for reflection, study, and friendly interchange 
of thought should be — Is negro slavery unjust? 
The rational and dispassionate inquirer will 
find no difliculty in arriving at my conclusion. 
It is fit and proper ; it is, in its own nature, 
as an institution, beneficial to both races ; and 
the eftect of this assertion is not diminished 
by our admitting that many faults are prac- 
tised under it. Is not such the fact in respect 
to all human laws and institutions ? 

I am, gentlemen, with great respect, yours 
truly, 

CHARLES O'CONOR. 



To Messrs. Leitch, Burnet & Co. ; George W. & Jehial 
Read; Bruff, Brother & Seaver ; C. B. Hatch & Co. ; 
Davis, Noble & Co. ; Wesson & Co.x ; Cron:u, liurxthal & 
Sears ; Atwater, Mulford 4 Co. 



15 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES. 



At the late Union-saving meeting in this city, 
wherein sundry gentlemen distinguished them- 
selves no less for their lofty patriotism in pre- 
venting the dissolution of the Union than for their 
generous abuse of the Republican party in gene- 
ral and Gov. Seward in particular, the speech of 
Mr. O'Conor was the gem of the occasion. The 
clerical patriotism and happy forgetfulness of the 
reverend theologian ; the stately* and heavy 
grandeur of the ex-Governor ; the splendid hits 
and magnificent periods of the chaa-eleon Thayer 
— all pale before the effort of this distinguished 
' orator of the legal profession. It is, however, 
deserving of special notice, not on account of its 
novelty, its logic, or its moral tone, but for the 
simple fact that the leading Democratic journals 
have pronounced it a bold and manly effort, and 
assumed it as the key-note of Democratic con- 
servatism. As a lawyer, Mr. O'Conor, in giving 
utterance to his extreme Pro-Slavery sentiments, 
so utterly abhorrent to the intelligence and moral 
sense of the North, should at least have attempted 
to fortify his doctrine by a show of authority or 
logical argument. 

We do not, however, deny the right of this dis- 
tinguished advocate, in presenting the case of his 
Southern clients and of the Northern Democracy, 
to take his own course ; but we propose to call him 
and several other witnesses, whom he himself will 
recognize as men of some eminence as lawyers, 
jurists, statesmen, philosophers, and theologians, 
and present their testimony to the American peo- 
ple, in order that they may come to a right con- 
clusion as to the success of Mr. Charles O'Conor's 
defence of Slavery, and its Democratic indorse- 
ment. And first, consider an extract from Mr. 
O'Conor's speech upon this subject of Slavery : 

" It (Negro Slavery) is not only not unjust, it is just, wise 
and beneficent." — Charles O'Coiwr, 

This iipse dixit closes the case on the part of the 
Democracy. Now, on the other hand : 

"Slavery is inconsistent with the genius of Republican- 
ism—it lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, 
and habituates us to tyranny and oppression." — Luther 
Martin, of Md. 

" It (Slavery) is so odious that nothing can be sufficient 
to support it but positive law." — Lord Manafield. 

" It is injustice to permit Slavery to remain for a single 
^'3m."—^Yimam Pitt. 

"Slavery is contrary to the fundamental law of all so- 
cieties." — Montesquieu. 

" Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation 
'■-, of divine law, and a degradation of human nature." — 
Brissoi. 

" Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell, or buy 
slaves or freemen." — Grotius. 

"Slavery is detrimental to vii-tue and industry." — 
Beattie. 

" slavery is a system of outrage and robbery." — Socrates. 

"Slavery is a system of the most complete injustice." — 
PUito. 

" While men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor 
blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and 
guilty phantasy that man can hold property in man," — 
Bro^igha'm. 

" Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, so ruinous 
to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it 
ought not to be suffered to exist." — Burke. 

" No man is by nature the property of another." — I>r. 
Johnnon. 



" A system (Slavery) which is not only opposed to all the 
principles of morality, but as it appears to me, is pregnant 
with appalling and inevitable danger to the Republic." — 
Baron UumboUU. 

" Every man has a property in his own person — this no- 
body has a right to but himself" — Locke. 

" It perverts human reason, and induces men endowed 
with logical powers to maintain that Slavery is sanctioned 
by the Christian religion,"— t/6>/i7i Q. Adamn. 

"I never would consent and never have consented tha 
there should be one foot of Slavery territory beyond what 
the old thirteen States had at the formation of the Union. 
Never, never." — Daniel Webster. 

" It (Slavery) ought not to be introduced nor permitted in 
any of the new States."— JbAre Jay. 

" Natural liberty is the gift of the beneficent Creator of 
the whole human race."— ^?«£d ILamilton. 

'■ Slavery is an atrocious debasemeot of human nature." 
— Franklin. 

" It (Slavery) impairs our strength as a community, and 
poisons our morals at the fountain head." — Judge Gaston, 
ofN. C. 

" The evils of this system (Slavery) cannot be enumer- 
ated." — George W. Summers, of Va. 

" So long as God allows the vital current to flow through 
my veins, I will never, never, never, by word or thought, 
by mind or will, aid in submitting one rood of free territory 
to the everlasting curse of Human Bondage." — Ifenry 
Clay. 

" Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man 
from the North who rises here (in Congress) to defend 
Slavery from principle." — John Randolph. 

" We have found that this evil (Slavery) has preyed upon 
the very vitals of the Union, and has been prejudicial to 
all the States in which it has existed." — James Monroe. 

" The abolition of domestic Slavery is the greatest object 
of desire in these Colonies, whe-e it was unhappily intro- 
duced in their infant state "—Thomas Jefferson. 

" I can only say that there is not a man living who 
wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for 
the abolition of it " (Slavery). — Geo. Washington. * 

For Mr. O'Conor's special benefit, we introduce 
two other witnesses : 

" Not only does the Christian religion, but nature her- 
self cry, out against the state of Slavery." — Pope Leo X. 

" We further reprobate, by our Apostolic authority, all 
the above offences (tiaffic in slaves and holding them in 
Slavery) as utterly unworthy of the Christian name." — 
Pope Gregory X VI. 

We simply add that the Roman Catholic Church, 
the Lutheran, the Greek, the Nestorian, the Church 
of England, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland, 
and Holland ; indeed, the whole Protestant Church 
— all, except a few churches in the Southern 
States — now, and at all times, have deplored and 
denounced human bondage, as a social, moral, 
and political evil — either by their creeds, laws, or 
constitutions, or by the authoritative opinions of 
their most eminent divines. And yet, Mr. Charles 
O'Conor, as tha representative man of the vast 
multitude of the Union-saving Democracy — stand- 
ing in the great commercial emporium of this 
great Republic — has the effrontry to proclaim 
(and is applauded for so proclaiming) that the 
system of Negro Slavery, which the united voices 
of the great and the good, in all ages, and which 
the advancing civilization of the whole of Christen- 
dom unite in denouncing as abhorrent to all law, 
human and divine, "is not only not unjust, but is 
just, wise, and beneficent." And the Pro-Slavery 
Democracy not only does not condemn the utter- 
ance of this abominable sentiment, but sustains 
and applauds it ! 



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